Footballer stumbles into jobless row

Unemployment tops the political agenda in Germany where more than 4 million people are without work. Now the controversy threatens an unlikely victim after a leading sportsman put his foot in it, reports John Hooper

The great issues of state in Germany have claimed an unlikely victim. Stefan Effenberg, Bayern Munich's forthright captain, is in danger of ending his footballing career in Germany in ignominy after giving his opinion on the issue that looks set to decide the next election.

In an interview with the German edition of Playboy magazine this week, the 33 year-old Effenberg argued that over-generous benefits were largely to blame for his country's unemployment problem. Currently more than one in ten of Germany's workers is without a job.

"A lot of the unemployed have such good benefits that they don't want to get up in the morning and do a full day's work," declared Effenberg.

His remark sparked near-apoplexy in a society that takes pride in its welfare state. "I'm speechless", said Rudi Assauer, the manager of rival Schalke. "You could hardly utter a more stupid remark."

Germany's biggest selling newspaper, Bild, carried photos on its front page of half a dozen unemployed Germans giving the finger to Effenberg. And even the governor of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, a lifelong Bayern fan, was moved to warn the midfielder that he "should stick to talking about what he knows best - football".

Now the tall, blond Effenberg, who is due to leave his club at the end of this season, is set to miss his second match in two weeks. He was dropped from the side that met Hertha Berlin in a key match last weekend and looks certain to sit out Bayern's next fixture against VfL Wolfsburg.

The club's president Franz Beckenbauer said it would not be a good idea for Effenberg to show his face in a town best known for its car manufacturing. "It's a workers' city", said Beckenbauer. "It could lead to further misunderstandings."

Few of Effenberg's critics were ready to agree that there was any misunderstanding involved. People living on the dole had been told off by a man with reported annual earnings of 4m euros (£2.5m), and that was outrageous.

Yet the fact remains that, however tactlessly and however inappropriately, the millionaire footballer went to the heart of a debate that Germany cannot dodge forever. It is absurd to imply, as Effenberg came near to doing, that Germany's four million jobless are lazy. Many, particularly in the formerly communist east, where the problem is worst, face the stark reality that their local industries have been destroyed.

Nevertheless, a lot of Germany's economists would agree with its most colourful footballer that the welfare system is, in two respects, an obstacle to fuller employment. It is not that unemployment pay is absurdly high, but that the state takes so much out of earnings to pay for the dole and other benefits that what job seekers would get with a wage is often little different from what they already get without one. The state also, of course, takes copiously from employers, and that means the cost of hiring new workers - creating new jobs - can be prohibitive.

A systematic approach to the problem would therefore involve not just a restructuring of unemployment pay, but also a cut in the amount both employers and employees pay by way of social security contributions. That is the nub of the problem.

With more than four million Germans jobless, despite a pledge from the government to cut the number to under 3.5 million, unemployment is right at the top of the agenda as the country edges towards a general election in September.

On the other hand there is very little talk of an overhaul of the welfare system that is itself an important reason why the figure is so high.

Small wonder. Neither of the two big parties, the Social Democrats on the left and the Christian Democrats on the right, much fancies going to the country on a pledge to cut benefits. The only party offering a radical solution is the smaller, neo-liberal Free Democrat Party (FDP), which wants to push Germany closer to the Anglo-Saxon, free-market model.

This week, though, brought the latest in a string of hints that some Germans, if only a minority, are ready to swallow unpalatable medicine if that is what it takes to cure what has come to be called the 'German disease' - a combination of low growth and high unemployment. On Sunday, the results were announced of an election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, the part of Germany with the highest unemployment rate of all. They were sensational.

The ruling Social Democrats saw their share of the vote almost halved. And in what was once a communist industrial heartland, the free-market FDP saw its support tripled to more than 13%.